April 2015
Wednesday, April 1, 2015
Dean's Brown Bag -- without the brown bag!
Dr. Glenn Ricart will be joining us for an informal lunch (pizza will be provided) and to discuss how he's "loved every job he's ever had."
12 pm - 1 pm, IS Building, Room 522
Wednesday, April 1, 2015
iSchool Colloquium Series presents: Dr. Glenn Ricart, "Affordances of Network Virtualization"
Some end-user applications are greatly simplified by execution on virtualized networks that have been enhanced or idealized in ways which specifically support the application. This talk discusses the affordances provided to end-user applications running on virtual networks which variously: (a) manage latency, (b) manage jitter, (c) provide ultra-reliable packet delivery, (d) optimize branch points for multicast packet duplication, (e) isolate sensitive information flows, and/or (f) bundle network billing with application use. Examples will be provided from the realm of US Ignite applications.
2:00 pm, coffee and cookies
2:30 pm, lecture
3:30 pm, informal meet & greet with the speaker
IS Building, 3rd Floor
Wednesday, April 1, 2015
IEEE Communications Society meeting in conjunction with the Telecommunications & Information Assurance Seminars presents: Dr. Glenn Ricart, "The Gigabit Applications Frontier"
What end-user applications might be newly enabled in the dozens of cities being newly wired for end-user gigabit by Google, AT&T, CenturyLink, and others? What might be the impact on citizens in these cities? How might gigabit provide an unfair advantage to smart cities? How might these capabilities and applications change the architecture for what we today call cloud computing?
6:30 pm, meet the speaker -- with pizza!
7 pm, lecture
IS Building, 3rd Floor
Thursday, April 2, 2015
Film screening and panel discussion: “The Decade of Discovery"
A light reception will begin at 5:00 pm in the Alcoa Room of the School of Law (2nd floor). The screening will begin at 6:00 pm in Room 111 (1st floor) followed by the hour-long panel discussion.
Friday, April 3, 2015
ULS/iSchool Digital Scholarship Workshop & Lecture Series presents:
Introduction to Data Science for the Humanities and Social Sciences
Data science is a new field that attempts to discover potential insights residing in big data. Over the past few years, the use of big data has hugely impacted many industries and research areas. This talk will introduce data science for people who do not have computational background. The introduction will give a high level picture of data science, covering data science process and its powerful use in a wide range of domains, with a particular emphasis on the use of big data in the humanities and social sciences. Familiarity with basic data analysis concepts is preferred but not essential.
10 am - 11 am, Hillman Library, Ground Floor (Amy E. Knapp Room)
Friday, April 3, 2015
The iSchool Experience: A Panel Luncheon on Careers, Curricula, & Community
Panelists include Dean Ronald Larsen, and Faculty members Amelia Acker, Peter Brusilovsky, Leona Mitchell, and Kostantinos Pelechrinis; Moderated by Wesley Lipschultz. Please email us questions or topics for the panel. Your question will remain anonymous.
12:30 pm - 2:30 pm
IS Building, 3rd Floor Student Collaboration Space
Monday, April 6, 2015
Last day to apply for graduation with a late fee.
If you submit your application after April 6, you will have to wait until the next term to graduate.
Please contact the appropriate representative for more information. BSIS Grads: Mary Koller; IST & TELE Grads: Mary Stewart; LIS Grads: Marcy Walls
Wednesday, April 8th, 2015
Professional Development Session: The Internet of Things
Get a sense of how corporations will be putting together business opportunities around the internet of things. This session is a webinar offered by Gartner and broadcast for attendees at no charge (such webinar would typically would cost $1000 or more if taken individually). This seminar will be introduced by our newest professor of practice, Leona Mitchell, who was herself a mover and shaker in IBM and the IT and business world for decades. This session is open to all current iSchool students, faculty, and staff.
11 am
IS Building, 3rd Floor
Friday, April 10, 2015
ULS/iSchool Digital Scholarship Workshop & Lecture Series presents:
An Introduction to Omeka
This interactive workshop will introduce students to Omeka, a tool that can be used to create online exhibits of digital objects, add contextual information to digital objects, and tell stories with a digital collection. This session will introduce the concept of a "content management system," consider the capabilities that Omeka offers, and spark discussion about how students might use this tool for organizing, enriching, and sharing digital materials. Do you have a collection of digital photographs that you would like to experiment with during the workshop? Feel free to your files along to learn how you might curate them with Omeka!
10 am - 12 pm
Hillman Library, Ground Floor (Amy E. Knapp Room)
Friday, April 10, 2015
Admitted Students Day
If you are a prospective student who has been offered admission to the iSchool at Pitt but you still have questions about the iSchool or your intended program of study, then this day is for you! Please join us for a day of activities and informational sessions designed to offer you all of the information and insight you need to make an informed decision about your future education.
12 pm
IS Building, 3rd Floor
Friday, April 10, 2015
Telecommunications Seminar Series presents:
Abby Knowles (Verizon Wireless Network), "Innovation & the Wireless Explosion"
Details forthcoming.
12 pm, meet & greet (pizza provided)
12:30 pm, talk
IS Building, Room 403
Friday, April 10, 2015
Big Data Colloquium Series presents:
Dr. Fei Wang (University of Connecticut), "Generating Effective Features from Electronic Health Records"
Data-Driven Healthcare (DDH) has aroused considerable interest from various research fields in recent years. Patient Electronic Health Records (EHR) are one of the major carriers for conducting DDH research. There are many challenges when working directly with EHR, such as sparsity, high-dimensionality, and temporality. In this talk, I will introduce my recent work on generating effective features for EHR including: 1) a grouping scheme for detecting useful feature groups; 2) a graph based approach for detecting aggregated temporal feature patterns; 3) a deep learning strategy for generating effective medical concepts. I will show various applications of these techniques including early prediction of the onset risk of chronic diseases and disease progression modeling.
1:15 pm - 2:15 pm
IS Building, Room 501
Friday, April 10, 2015
iSchool Colloquium Series presents:
Dr. Sharad Mehrotra (UCI & CERT), "Risk Aware Approach to Data Confidentiality in Cloud Computing"
This talk focuses on the issue of “loss of control” that results when users outsource data and computation to the clouds. While loss of control has multiple manifestations, we focus on the data privacy and confidentiality implications when cloud providers are untrusted. Instead of following the well-studied (but still unsolved) path of encrypting data when outsourcing & computing on the encrypted domain, the talk advocates a risk-based approach to partitioning computation over hybrid clouds that provides an abstraction to address secure cloud data processing in a variety of system and application contexts. The talk will focus on two systems (a) SEMROD -- a secure map reduce platform for secure computing in hybrid clouds, and (b) Cloud Protect -- a middleware to selectively encrypt data stored in applications over the cloud based on user's security policies and workload.
2 pm, reception
2:30 pm, lecture
IS Building, Room 404
Friday, April 10, 2015
iSchool Social Hour
Join us for refreshments and the opportunity to meet and network with iSchool students, faculty, and staff. Newly admitted (but not yet enrolled) students are welcome to join us as well!
3 pm - 6 pm
IS Building, 3rd Floor
Wednesday, April 15th, 2015
Professional Development Session: 10 Trends and Technologies Impacting IT over the next 5 Years
This session is a webinar offered by Gartner and broadcast for attendees at no charge (such webinar would typically would cost $1000 or more if taken individually). This seminar will be introduced by our newest professor of practice, Leona Mitchell, who was herself a mover and shaker in IBM and the IT and business world for decades. This session is open to all current iSchool students, faculty, and staff.
1 pm
IS Building, 3rd Floor
Wednesday, April 15th, 2015
Professional Development Session: Maximizing your LinkedIn Profile
Learn how to use LinkedIn for professional networking, how to get noticed by employers, and the dos and don’ts of professional networking online. This session will be led by our newest professor of practice, Leona Mitchell, who was herself a mover and shaker in IBM and the IT and business world for decades. This means you have the valuable opportunity to be coached by a high-level professional executive! This session is open to all current iSchool students, faculty, and staff.
3 pm
IS Building, 3rd Floor
Friday, April 17, 2015
ULS/iSchool Digital Scholarship Workshop & Lecture Series: Transforming the Web into Data (with Python)
10 am - 12 pm
Hillman Library, Ground Floor (Amy E. Knapp Room)
Friday, April 17, 2015
iSchool Colloquium Series presents:
Dr. Lynette Kvasny (Penn State University), "Applying a Chaos Theory Approach to Understanding the Career Pathways of African American Men in Information Technology"
Reports by the College Board, the National Science Foundation, and the National Center for Educational Statistics use statistical methods to analyze national datasets, and have highlighted the educational and career challenges facing young African American men. The grim discourse that flows from this body of work may unwittingly contribute to America’s low expectations for African American men and tells us little about those men who do succeed.
11 am, coffee reception
11:30 am - 12:30 pm, lecture
IS Building, 3rd Floor
Friday, April 24, 2015
Diversity Student Organization event
3-6 pm, IS Building, Third Floor
Sunday, April 26, 2015
2015 iSchool Recognition Ceremony
Ceremony to commence at 9:30 am
Alumni Hall, Seventh Floor Auditorium
4227 Fifth Avenue at Lytton Avenue
Breakfast to follow at the Cathedral of Learning, Commons Area, First Floor
RSVP by Monday, April 20, 2015 at www.ischool.pitt.edu/sisint/studentservices/graduation.html
Sunday, April 26, 2015
University of Pittsburgh Commencement Convocation 2015
1 pm, Petersen Events Center (3719 Terrace St.)
Doors will open at 11 a.m. Backpacks, packages, or oversized purses will not be permitted. Attendees are requested to leave these items behind because on-site storage will not be available. Attendees are also advised to arrive early to allow time to pass through security.